Bernard Melekian Intro:
This is The Beat, a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics facing our nation.
Katherine McQuay:
This is Katherine McQuay with the COPS Office, and with us today is Officer Diane Tillery who has been with the
Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland for 28 years now. Congratulations on 28 years.
Diane Tillery:
Thank you very much.
Katherine McQuay:
And I wondered if you could tell us in all that time how community policing has changed since you first became an officer,
and specifically some of the things you are dealing with now.
Diane Tillery:
I would say in the beginning -- I started with the police department in 1982 -- a lot of the strategies that we used were
simply ways to try to assist people, residents, rather than make arrests. Now, we sort of do a little bit of a combination of both.
One of the problems that we’ve encountered in Montgomery County most recently is something called promoter-sponsored events.
These are where promoters go into a restaurant or bar in which, with this economy, you find most of these bars and restaurants
are struggling to get people to come in, so they’re looking for after-hours income that might be able to assist them in making
their monthly rents. I have one particular restaurant that their mortgage, or their rent payment every month, was $34,000.
Now, that would be before they made the first payment for food or staff or anything else, $34,000. So these promoters come
into these facilities, and they try very hard to get these managers or owners to buy into this idea. Once they’ve signed on,
what they don’t tell the people is the residents that they’re attracting are not going to be coming specifically from Montgomery
County, or where their bar/restaurant is located.
So as the police department, we had to look at a more creative way to try to address some of these problems. That included running
calls for service to show that we had a history of problems at this location since the promoter-sponsored events had started.
I used the Maryland tax records to actually find the actual property owner, not just the owner of the business itself, to be sure
that they’re aware of what’s going on in their property. Once we’ve done that, we contact the Department of Permitting Services
to make sure that they actually have an occupancy permit that allows them to have promoter-sponsored events.
As an example, one of the properties that has since closed down had a special exception to operate at its current location.
Because they had a special exception, they weren’t allowed to deviate at all from what they had signed up for, which was to be a
billiards hall. They were required to have 18 tables in there at all times. Well, they’d taken out half the tables so that they’d
have room for the promoter to sponsor these events. It violated their special exception, and they had to close.
We also talked to the Department of Liquor Control and asked them about violations that they’ve had as far as underage drinkers,
anybody that’s been served once they’ve been intoxicated. One of the other things the Department of Liquor Board does is they go
in and they look for mixing of bottles. In Montgomery County, we’re specific where all of our liquor comes from the Department of
Liquor Control. You can’t bring anything from D.C. You can’t bring it from home. You can’t bring it from anywhere. You have to
buy it from the county.
So then, once I gather all that information, we actually meet with the business owner. We sit down and we bring all the calls for service.
We bring copies of all the flyers and postcards that these promoters are using to advertise, which includes all the advertisement that
they’re doing on Facebook and MySpace. We ask to see their occupancy permit.
We look to be sure that their insurance card is up to date. They have to provide their -- as part of their lease agreement, they have
to provide information to show that they have current insurance. That information is critical to me because I then contact the
insurance company to be sure that they understand that they’re running this kind of promoter-sponsored event and that they have
adequate liability insurance for when something goes wrong. Most of the insurance companies don’t want to touch this at all.
So we then ask for a copy of their security plan. In order to be able to host these kind of events, you have to have a plan: if
there’s too many people, how many people are going to be checking IDs at the door, what you’re going to do to keep these patrons safe.
Also, we also talked about, especially if someone has obtained an occupancy permit based upon the fact that they’re a restaurant, if
they’re now serving more alcohol than they are food, that’s also a violation in Montgomery County.
The biggest thing that I talk about is civil liability, and that is you talk about the fact that if this event is, you know, has the
potential to cause violence and has led to violence in the past, we now as a police department are letting you know that you are civilly
liable and that I personally have now warned you, and that if I have to I will be happy to testify at the civil trial based on the fact
that you’ve received this warning. Most of the bands do call-outs and shout-outs to talk about neighborhood crews, which leads to gang
violence. And we also work very closely with the Fire Marshal’s Office to try to bring them in for code violations.
So we look at all of these, putting all of this package together, and so far, we’ve been successful in closing these down in Montgomery
County. We had an incident yesterday in which we were able to meet with a local high school that was planning an after-prom party, and
they had hired one of these go-go bands in order to try to get more of the kids to participate. Well, what they didn’t realize, of course,
was again, the civil liability that came with this event. The event has now been canceled.
Katherine McQuay:
And why do you think this community-oriented approach and these partnerships have been so successful?
Diane Tillery:
You have to look at that most people want to keep their community safe, and while we understand that people want to be able to make money
and want to be able to do things within their community, and as I explained to this mom yesterday who was in charge of the after-prom party,
while I understand that you were trying to do something that was great for your kid and this is a great after-prom activity to try to draw
people in and get them to actually come to the event because a lot of people don’t participate in the after-prom party. They go their
own way, and they do their own thing. As a parent, you also have to also understand that the police have now warned you of the propensity
for violence. Are you going to share that information with the other 500 parents? And if you’re not, you have to assume the civil liability.
Katherine McQuay:
Thank you so much and continued success.
Diane Tillery:
Thank you very much.
Bernard Melekian Exit:
The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s community
safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems.
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